Suggestion Box

Jan 21, 2013

Last month South Korea elected its first female president. Seems progressive enough, but Park Geun-hye is a fiercely conservative daughter of a dictatorial former president. It was a passionate race to the finish, and her two liberal opponents at one point were going to band together to take her down, but they couldn’t agree on who should step down.

Like Japan, the Korean people chose a conservative candidate to guide them through these recent troubled economic times, convinced they are the key to recovery. Unlike Japan, South Korean voters came out in droves on election day.

Now South Koreans are lining up outside Park’s “Center for Proposals for the People’s Happiness”. As she transitions into power, downsizing government, chopping budgets, and hiring and firing, she has established this center (open until February 8th) to hear what the people want. Citizens are lining up (and camping out) to get their submissions in. Five officials will review the suggestions as they come in, and present the cream of the crop to the transition committee. It’s promised that some of the ideas presented will be put into action.

Maybe someone will step up and request a South Korean Death Star, so the Republic can gain some street cred in the space race. That would make North Korea SO mad.

So far the suggestions have been echoes of the requests made during the election, and campaign promises made by Park to make life better for the poor, the elderly and small businesses. There have also been less lofty requests to do things like shake her hand. There was also a request to make sex offenders wear giant, identifying barcodes at all times. Maybe a QR code would be more useful, and just imagine the fabric pattern possibilities!